Hacker News: mbetter

New comment by mbetter in "Feds: Silk Road boss paid $80,000 for snitch’s torture and murder"

mbetter — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 03:12:33 +0000

Oh, get fucked.

New comment by mbetter in "Criminal Complaint against Ross Ulbricht aka "Dread Pirate Roberts" [pdf]"

mbetter — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 02:22:44 +0000

> I can't murder your sister if you don't have a sister.

But I believe you can conspire to murder my sister, even if I don't have a sister.

New comment by mbetter in "Tech Columnist Walt Mossberg to Leave WSJ"

mbetter — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 04:56:38 +0000

Oh, go fuck yourself.

New comment by mbetter in "Paul Graham reviews Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (2000)"

mbetter — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 21:54:06 +0000

The passage in question, as neither of you seem to have read it closely:

> Donald Knuth says he wrote his books for "the one person in 50 who has this strange way of thinking that makes a programmer". I think the most amazing thing about SICP is that there are so FEW people who hate it: if Knuth were right, then only 1 out of 50 people would be giving this 5 stars, instead of about 25 out of 50. Now, a big part of the explanation is that the audience is self-selected, and is not a representative sample. But I think part of it is because Sussman and Abelson have succeeded grandly in communicating "this strange way of thinking" to (some but not all) people who otherwise would never get there.

New comment by mbetter in "Paul Graham reviews Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (2000)"

mbetter — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 21:26:40 +0000

Try reading it again.

New comment by mbetter in "Why HTTP/2.0 does not seem interesting (2012)"

mbetter — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 06:44:18 +0000

> Our general policy is to only add protocols if we can do a better job than the alternative, which is why we have not implemented HTTPS for instance.

New comment by mbetter in "The Constitution Applies When the Government Bans Americans From the Skies"

mbetter — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:52:39 +0000

Problem: Hamburger buns aren't noticeable enough. Solution: A cheeseburger with a lightbulb inside.

Problem: Some humans are currently suffering. Solution: Destroy the universe.

New comment by mbetter in "Snapchat, You've Made a Huge Mistake"

mbetter — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 20:36:50 +0000

Just because you are cheating on your wife doesn't mean that everyone else is too.

New comment by mbetter in "U.S. Alleges $6 Billion Money-Laundering Operation Using Virtual Currency"

mbetter — Wed, 29 May 2013 01:12:03 +0000

> "We as a society" didn't really do this.

Yes, we most certainly did. Start with the Bank Secrecy Act which was enacted, by duly elected representatives of the People of the United States, in 1970. This group of regulations "require[s] financial institutions, which under the current definition include a broad array of entities, including banks, credit card companies, life insurers, money service businesses and broker-dealers in securities, to report certain transactions to the United States Treasury."

New comment by mbetter in "Do charter schools work? A new study of Boston schools says yes."

mbetter — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:22:33 +0000

> If education is the primary path for upward social mobility, then every parent should have some choice in where their child goes to school.

I don't see how this follows.

New comment by mbetter in "Square Debuts its Latest Hardware, a $299 Card Swiper for iPad Registers"

mbetter — Tue, 14 May 2013 17:54:26 +0000

> Accepted payment methods: Bitcoin, pogs, that Billy Ripken baseball card with an expletive on the bat, good intentions.

New comment by mbetter in "Samsung is hurting Android "

mbetter — Mon, 13 May 2013 00:58:47 +0000

I personally consider the Pre2 the high-water mark for smartphones.

New comment by mbetter in "[dead]"

mbetter — Tue, 07 May 2013 21:09:46 +0000

Go fuck yourself, Joe Conway.

Wait, maybe I should make this reply a blog post instead.

New comment by mbetter in "Shenzhen is Like Living in a City-Sized TechShop"

mbetter — Fri, 03 May 2013 17:50:20 +0000

> Government "protections" can only make it worse.

Bullshit.

> Similarly child labor is only a problem when families are too poor to survive if the children don't work.

Bullshit.

> Minimum wage laws "protect" the least profitable workers from getting legal jobs, forcing them to get illegal jobs or survive on government handouts.

Bullshit.

> Environmental destruction happens because government restricts property rights and creates commons which belong to no one.

Big surprise, bullshit.

New comment by mbetter in "The McDonald's Theory of Bad Ideas"

mbetter — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:14:22 +0000

I actually could go for some McNuggets right now.

New comment by mbetter in "The Excel Depression"

mbetter — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 05:23:24 +0000

"Impact" implies causation. Low growth, for any reason, would lead to a higher ratio of debt to GDP. The original (erroneous) results of this study suggested that there was a point at which the relationship between the two changed.

New comment by mbetter in "The Excel Depression"

mbetter — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 05:10:45 +0000

I would suggest that in a situation like this, "the difficulty of reviewing Excel code" is even overstated. The direct dependencies of any cell are discoverable with trivial effort.

New comment by mbetter in "The Excel Depression"

mbetter — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 05:05:29 +0000

Your citations don't even remotely suggest your conclusion.

New comment by mbetter in "The most useful thing in bash"

mbetter — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 18:43:38 +0000

I would say the single most useful thing in bash is the ability to type in commands.

New comment by mbetter in "The Dangers of Thinking Like an Economist"

mbetter — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 02:25:29 +0000

The former, as it's not make believe.